


Bruises and Blush

by Calyah



Series: Jaal Ama Darav x Sierra Ryder [2]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 20:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10544004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calyah/pseuds/Calyah
Summary: Jaal observes the crew and finds a comforting commonality.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a fun little drabble to explore Jaal’s curiosity and growing affection for Sierra and the crew. Plus, the start of some inviting flirtation. Takes place when the Tempest first goes to Voeld. Pre-relationship. Huge thanks to intergalactix for looking this over and letting me borrow the evolution line she suggested for Vetra.

“Fuck, that was cold. I can’t even feel my face anymore.”

Jaal chuckles at Liam’s words as the cargo bay doors close behind them. He’d had no idea the humans would be so…sensitive to Voeld’s climate, bundling their bodies almost beyond recognition to combat the elements. But even the other aliens—the Turian, Vetra, and the Krogan, Drack—had complained when they had ventured out into the snow. Perhaps the Milky Way was a much warmer galaxy than he had originally considered. 

“My balls are frozen solid,” Drack says with a shake of his armor, sloughing off the ice stuck between the metal joints. 

Vetra laughs over her shoulder. “It’s not like you need them anymore.”

Drack grumbles, but he’s grinning. “You always need a quad.”

Jaal’s lips quirk up as he sets down his rifle and begins to unfasten his armor. This new crew is bemusing, their comfortable manner with one another surprising him time and time again. At first, he hadn’t known what to make of them, all different in looks and demeanor. But the more he has observed, the more he sees the crafted workings underneath—the ties and relationships that allow them to function as a team. They are still strange and their customs foreign, but he thinks he’s beginning to understand. 

There’s a muffled hiss, and his eyes slide to his left. The Pathfinder is unbuckling her suit, a pained scowl on her face. 

“Are you injured?” He asks her in concern. 

She shakes her head and smiles. “Nothing serious. Just a stray shot to the ribs.” Her smile turns quickly into a grimace as she peels away the underlining of her armor. 

Jaal’s eyes widen. 

The newly exposed skin on her abdomen is a sheer explosion of color—mottled blues and purples and a deep slash of green—that spreads halfway down to her hip.

“Ouch,” Vetra says, coming closer and bending down to inspect the Pathfinder’s side. Jaal blinks in surprise as the Turian pokes the skin with a sharp talon and laughs at Ryder’s flinch. “Human evolution could’ve used a few more armored plates, eh, Pathfinder?”

Ryder brushes Vetra’s hands away with a scoffing breath. “We make up for it in other ways,” she says, her brows raising.

Drack’s voice booms in amusement. “You wouldn’t survive otherwise! Humans are so…squishy.” 

“Only compared to your thick skull,” Liam chimes in from across the way, leaning on a crate and crossing his arms. 

Affectionate laughter soon fills the space. They are…teasing each other, Jaal realizes with a smile. It is something he can grasp, a…commonality between them so recognizable that he finds it infinitely pleasing. This form of bonding, so much like his sisters pulling at his fringe and comparing him, unflatteringly, to a kaerkyn, is finally something he can understand. 

Ryder turns to him with a grin, and, emboldened, he finds his eyes drawn once more to her skin. 

“Do humans often change color?” he asks, lifting a hand toward a deeply-shaded spot of purple.

“Only if you’re doing it right!” Peebee calls down as she passes by from above. 

Jaal frowns, confused, but he notices Liam roll his eyes and Ryder chuckle.

Ah, another joke to figure out.

“It’s just a bruise,” Ryder says, turning to her locker, but she looks at him from the corner of her eye. “Do angara not get bruises when they get injured?”

Now he understands. The discoloration is a result of trauma. 

“No,” he says. “When we are hurt, our skin hardens, protecting the vulnerability beneath.”

Her brows raise. “Really?” She eyes him speculatively, as if searching for proof of his words, and he shifts his feet, suddenly wanting to blush beneath her gaze. 

Clearing his throat, he nods. “I take it humans have no such defense.”

“Unfortunately not.” She slides a thin shirt over her head, covering the bruise and the rest of her unblemished skin.

He leans closer, his voice lowering for her ears alone. “Peebee's words. What do they mean? What must I ‘do right’ to see you change more?”

He meant it innocently enough, but he watches, fascinated, as her skin turns a brilliant shade of pink before his eyes. She is blushing, he decides, her cheeks a particularly dark red. 

A small laugh escapes her mouth, and even though he thinks she is embarrassed, Ryder meets his gaze with a smirk. 

“Now, Jaal,” she says, her voice quiet and teasing. “You’re just going to have to figure that one out for yourself.”

He leans back, delightfully surprised. He is almost sure she is flirting with him, and curiously, he finds his body’s natural current responding, charging higher at the very idea. 

“Are you…” He pauses, trying to find the right words to express his interest. “…permitting me to do so?”

She simply smiles at him, coy—a frustratingly unclear indication of her desires. But then he considers that perhaps she is not free to show herself more plainly, not in her current role as their leader. 

Stashing her pistol into her locker, Ryder steps back and gives him a slight nod. “See you around, Jaal.”

And then she is gone, climbing the ladder toward the helm of the ship. He stares after her, long after she has disappeared from sight. It is Liam settling next to him that draws him back to the present. 

“Hey, man, you wanna work on a project with me?”  


His words are so open and hopeful that Jaal feels himself instantly at peace. Yes, out of all of them, Liam reminds him the most of home. 

Nodding, Jaal clasps him on the shoulder and, for now, pushes his burning curiosity at Ryder’s flirtations to the back of his thoughts. “Of course, my friend! What do you have in mind?”


End file.
